The Flaws in the Story

Contest Judge Mary Jo Bang wrote: "Unputadownable, as in 'so gripping as to be read right through at one sitting.'"

Winner of the 2023 Marsh Hawk Press First Prize in Poetry. Contest Judge Mary Jo Bang writes: "Like Penelope's daily weaving, ripped out each night in order to keep in play the possibility of a happy ending (Odysseus's return, Laertes death forestalled), each of these fascinating poems is part of a larger story, each an exquisitely observed vignette that pinpoints a moment of conversation, or observation, or travel, that reveals, much like a chapter in a novel might, a set of characters with moods and conundrums. As the scenes accrue, the individual points in time become an inner life made visible, a brilliant enactment of a mind talking back to the world: 'I know as soon as I wake up it's time to start rethinking everything again.' Unputadownable, as in 'so gripping as to be read right through at one sitting.'"

Poetry.